


don't drink the water

by Princex_N



Series: you may not rest now, there are monsters nearby [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Anxiety, Betrayal, Delusions, Doubt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Mental Health Issues, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Paranoia, Psychosis, Schizo Spectrum Keith, Self-Sacrifice, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 19:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16646051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Keith tries to warn the others that something is wrong.It doesn't go as smoothly as he would have hoped.





	don't drink the water

**Author's Note:**

> Been wanting to write a story like this for a while

"Do we really  _all_ have to go to this thing?" Pidge asks. Her voice sounds more bitter than anything else Keith has ever heard from her. 

Allura doesn't miss a beat. "Yes," she says, voice unwavering in the face of Pidge's concentrated irritation. "Making alliances is an important aspect of winning a war, and as much power as the title "Ruler of Altea"  _used_ to exude, it's Voltron that people are looking up to now. If we want to appear strong enough to risk allying with, then  _all_ of the Paladins need to be present." 

Keith doesn't know if he really buys that excuse, but he also knows that trying to argue with Allura when she's this set on an idea is a lost cause.

Unfortunately, Pidge is equally stubborn. 

"It won't be that bad," Shiro steps in to say, interrupting Pidge before she can speak again and worsen the argument. "We'll all go in order to make a statement and show the locals that we  _are_ a unified front, and then after we've sat down to speak, you can leave if you want to.  _If_ ," he stresses, seeing the expression on Allura's face, "you do it subtly and politely." 

" _Fine_ ," Pidge snaps. "I'll go, but I'm not going to be happy about it."

"As long as you refrain from making a fuss, you don't  _have_ to be happy about it," Allura bites back primly. 

"Alright!!" Coran interjects, voice somewhat frantic. "You all should probably go off to get ready! We'll be there in a few ticks." 

Keith excuses himself from the room gratefully. He doesn't want to go to this thing any more than Pidge does, but that doesn't mean that he wants to stick around and argue about it until they have to leave. 

"Keith!" Shiro calls, and Keith stops to wait for the older man to catch up. "Hey. While we're down there, let me know if you need to back out or something, okay?" 

Keith resists the urge to grimace. The team knowing about him  _has_ made some things easier, but it's also started a bizarre trend of everyone occasionally treating Keith like he's made of glass, and he isn't sure if he appreciates that. Still, he knows that they  _mean_ well, and Keith won't lie and saying that having an out for this whole thing  _won't_ be nice. He might even be able to convince the others that he needs Pidge to come back with him, and they'll  _both_ be able to sneak out. 

So, he forces his face into an approximation of a smile and says, "Thanks. I'll let you know." 

* * *

Keith needs to back out of this  _immediately_. 

The moment they had stepped out of their lions to meet the group of people that have gathered there, Keith had  _known_ that something was off. He doesn't like any of this, he doesn't trust any of it. Something isn't right. 

His muscles are coiled tight under his armor as he forces himself to step forward to shake the diplomat's hand. He knows that making a scene here isn't going to accomplish anything, but that doesn't change the fact that there is something  _bad_ going on here, and they all need to get back into their lions and get the fuck out before something worse happens. 

"Shiro," he hisses, grabbing the black paladin's elbow and dragging him closer before he can follow the diplomat off to wherever he's leading them. Keith wasn't paying attention when they'd said. It doesn't matter anyway, he doesn't trust this guy enough to walk  _anywhere_ with him. "Shiro, something's wrong here." 

He manages to pull his gaze away from regarding the small crowd of officials to look properly at Shiro's face, and he almost recoils at the sight of the expression on his face. Something that looks overly-tolerant and vaguely sad. 

Shiro's hand comes up to rub reassuringly at Keith's shoulder, and Keith has to resist the urge to pull away. "Keith, everything is  _fine_ ," Shiro says. "We're just going to the main hall." 

That's the  _point_. They shouldn't be going  _anywhere_ with these people; they're up to no good, and Keith knows it. 

It takes a few more seconds for Shiro's real meaning to filter in through Keith's disbelief. 

"You don't believe me," he says, voice sickeningly small. He hates the way he sounds with a burning passion. He should be  _used_ to this. No one  _ever_ believes him. No one ever has before, why would they start now? Especially now that they  _know_ that Keith is crazy. Who in their right mind  _would_ believe him? 

This is  _exactly_ why he should have kept this to himself. 

Shiro seems to realize that he's made some kind of misstep, and he raises his hands up in a placating gesture. "Keith, you  _know_ I trust you, but this is a big step for Voltron to be taking. We can't afford to let something disrupt it. If you can give me a solid reason for why you think something is off, then I'm willing to hear you out, but you also  _have_ to realize that sometimes you just see things that aren't there." 

Keith feels like he's going to be sick, but even worse, he knows that Shiro is right. 

Even worse than that, he can't come up with anything. 

He just... knows. 

Shiro's face creases sympathetically at Keith's obvious floundering. "Just try to hold out for a little bit, okay? I'll talk to Allura for you so she doesn't try to stop you from leaving later." 

Keith doesn't protest, but he still knows that he's right. 

He just has to figure out how to make the others believe him before it's too late. 

* * *

The first thing Keith does is go to Pidge. Even if she doesn't  _believe_ him (although, she has probably been the one on the team who has been the best with the news that she herself had helped break), Keith at least has faith that she's unwilling enough to be here to the point of listening to what he has to say, if only to use as an excuse to leave early. 

"Have you noticed anything weird about this place?" he asks her, once he and Shiro have caught up to the rest of them and Shiro has pulled forward enough that he won't be able to hear Keith speaking. 

Pidge snorts. "Yeah, the fact that I have to be here in the first place," she mutters angrily, but then seems to realize who she's speaking to and gives him a second look. "What kind of weird?" 

"Something isn't  _right_ here," he says, voice taking on an angry tone only because it's better than pleading. "I can't be the only one who sees it." 

She studies him for a brief moment, eyes raking over his face and body language, and then - to Keith's relief - she at least does him the courtesy of looking around. 

Keith can't pin down what it is that he knows. Maybe that means he's wrong, but he doesn't think so. He hadn't been wrong in the desert, about the energy out there that had brought them all out here in the first place, and that had been so much bigger than this. That  _has_ to mean something, and even if it  _doesn't_ , Keith isn't willing to take chances when his friends' (the only ones he's had in years) safety could be at stake. 

"It  _is_ kind of quiet," she says finally, voice dropping lower to keep anyone from overhearing. "Every other planet we've been to have had these massive crowds, and there were always kids running around, like civilians. I don't think I've seen anyone that  _isn't_ an official yet." She looks up at him from behind her glasses, "I don't know if that's real  _evidence_ that something is wrong here, but it is something." 

It probably won't be enough to convince Shiro, but at least Keith has something to work with that isn't just some vague feeling in the base of his spine. He can work with that. 

"Like, maybe we shouldn't make a scene, in case you  _are_ wrong." The words don't sound pitying when she says them, they just sound pragmatic, and for some reason the difference matters. "But I can keep an eye out anyway. Should we tell the others?" 

Keith huffs miserably. "Shiro doesn't believe me," he tells her. "I already tried to tell him that we should leave, but he just thinks it's a delusion." 

That seems to catch her interest more than his initial question had. “Don’t your delusions usually have more detail than this? I don’t get caught up in them like you do, but I’ve been _aware_ of them sometimes; you always seem to have a full story for it all.”

He wants to agree with her, but, “Not always,” he admits, wincing. Sometimes it is just bad feelings, and he spends hours trying to figure out what the problem is, if there even is one to begin with. “But I don’t _think_ this is one of those times.”

"That's good enough for me," Pidge says, shrugging vaguely, like it isn't a big deal. He wonders if she knows that this will be one of the only times someone has ever listened to him before. He wonders if maybe she's not used to that too, in her own way. "I can at least tell Lance and Hunk. Allura will probably side with Shiro, and Coran's still on the ship, but Lance and Hunk will probably be willing to keep an eye out." 

She has a point, so he nods his agreement. Then he catches Shiro watching him, and he promptly puts a bit of space between Pidge and himself. 

( _Now_ things are starting to get a little hazy. Does it make sense that Shiro is already involved? That he's dismissing Keith on purpose? Would he intervene to keep Keith from talking to the others, from giving away the plan? That doesn't seem to make sense. At the  _very_ least, they had only been told about this trip after breakfast and they'd been together the whole time after that, so it doesn't seem to make sense that Shiro would have had the time to somehow get in contact with someone here. Plus, if Shiro  _wanted_ to betray them, he wouldn't need to get them off the ship to do it. It probably makes sense that Shiro is  _just_ trying to check and see if Keith is doing okay. Probably.) 

He meets Shiro’s eyes for as long as he can stand it, and Shiro only gives him a small smile and a nod of encouragement before turning his gaze back to the diplomat leading them through the hallways.

Meanwhile, Pidge speeds up a little until she’s right behind Lance and Hunk’s backs so that she can whisper to them. Keith meets their gazes a little easier and something in his chest nearly caves with relief when they nod seriously at him. Whether they believe him or not, they’re at least willing to go along (or at least _pretend_ to go along) with his suspicions.

It’s more than anyone has ever done for him before.

* * *

The first thing the diplomat takes them to do is meet the actual leader of the planet, who seems frail and nonthreatening. An appearance that does nothing to assuage Keith's fears. (Some of his worst foster families were the ones who looked like they could never do anything wrong, who looked kind and soft. Keith doesn't make judgement based on appearance anymore if he can help t. You never know who's going to be the one to get you.) 

"Paladins of Voltron," the leader's voice booms loudly and echoes in the nearly empty size of the throne room. "I am Lord Exeer, and it is an  _honor_ to have your presence here on our planet. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to have been considered for an alliance." 

Keith bites his lip to keep himself from saying anything, because no matter what is going on it's a bad idea. If he's wrong, then he's insulted a potential ally and Shiro and Allura will be pissed at him, and if he's right then he's showing his hand too early in a situation where there's only one visible exit that's probably definitely already blocked off. Now is the time for keeping his mouth shut. 

"Lord Exeer, it is an honor for us as well," Allura says, curtsying low enough that Keith wants to tell her not to (but really, she didn't particularly like him in the first place and now she likes him even less after what happened with the Blades, so he doubts that he'll be earning any favor from her any time soon, no matter what happens.) "Thank you for accepting our invitation and allowing us to be here today." 

The man laughs indulgently, but it sounds grating to Keith’s already jangled nerves. “Of course, my dear. Your father’s empire at its peak was a powerful ally to my predecessor, you cannot imagine my excitement when I received your message. In fact,” he smiles broadly, “we have prepared a feast in your honor, princess and paladins. I hope you would do us the courtesy of staying to participate.”

“Of course,” Allura assures him, voice diplomatic kind in a way she rarely is around the castle. “It would be our honor.”

Here's the thing: Keith has never had an easy time when it comes to food. 

Prepackaged food is the easiest only because it is mass produced (and thus harder to target an individual with) and easy enough to check if the seals have been tampered with or broken, but that doesn't mean that Keith has  _trusted_ them wholly. Even when he lived out in the desert and ate only food that he could scavenge for himself or buy with his dwindling savings, there were hours and days where he would refuse to eat because he had  _known_ that something had been wrong with it. 

He isn't sure if he's ever actually felt good about hand cooked meals. Even when he feels like he can almost trust the person preparing them, there is a social obligation that Keith rarely knows how to navigate. Not that it really matters, because it's rare that Keith has felt safe enough to eat handmade meals in the first place. (Even  _before_ something in his brain had broken, Keith had known better. Foster parents who wanted to take care of sick children, and others who saw something in him fit to punish, children who pulled 'pranks' to try and push others out of a cramped house, or ones who just liked to be cruel. You can't trust a meal you haven't seen being made and placed in front of you.) 

So, the table of pre-prepared food, already set out with name placards (which is really even worse; you don't have to worry about which dish is safe to eat if you've separated your food definitively from your target's) and full plates, is enough to make Keith want to bolt. 

He might even be able to get away with it; it hasn't been unusual for dietary restrictions between species to be a thing, and most of the planets they've already been to have been unfamiliar enough with humans to rarely try offering them food in the first place. It wouldn't be hard to find a phrasing that would get him out of it.

But even if  _he_ could get out of it, he doubts that they could  _all_ get out so easily. Allura in particular, considering how her father had apparently been on this planet before and the people here would theoretically know about Altean food restrictions to begin with. She might not like him, but that doesn't mean that Keith can leave her here to face whatever the fuck these people have planned. 

So, Keith ignores the concerned glances from every other paladin and forces his feet through the doorway and into the room. 

He just has to figure out something to keep all of them safe,  _fast_. 

* * *

Keith finds his own seat relatively quickly and tries to think, in the span of  _seconds_ that he has while everyone else fumbles to find their own place, of a plan. The leader and other officials remain standing at their respective seats, waiting for the other paladins to sit, and Keith can see the leader gearing up to give some kind of toast. They're trying to stall at least a little here, if Keith is reading things right, and he doesn't know why. 

His options are limited. He doesn't doubt that if he tries to get Shiro's attention again, he'll only be brushed off. If he tries to get Pidge or one of the others to hear him, they might listen but wouldn't have any more luck than he would in convincing the older two to listen. He's already established that there's not a more subtle or polite way to back them out of this. 

This is what Keith knows from experience: No one ever believes him until he gives them no other choice. 

And if he's wrong then, well, he's lived alone in a desert for over a year and a half. He's not used to manners anymore. 

Before the others get a chance to sit down, Keith takes a long sip of whatever drink they've put out for them and starts shoveling food into his mouth (he has to cover all of his bases as quickly as possible, after all). 

Pidge is the first to react, her momentary confusion turning to panic the moment she sees and understands what he’s doing. Hunk is the one to make the noise that alerts Allura and Shiro, who look horrified for a completely different reason.

Keith meets their eyes directly and doesn’t stop eating. 

His stomach had protested the moment the liquid hit the back of his throat, out of pure instinct and nothing else. He doesn't eat food that other people give him, it's  _wrong_ , but he's doing it anyway and his body almost doesn't know how to react. He forcibly represses his own panicked self-preservation instinct and doesn't let himself stop. He has to assume that whatever is in the food works quickly rather than slower, because you can only stall for so long before things start to get out of hand, and the longer you have variables running around the more likely it is that something will go wrong. So, he's hoping that whatever they've given him will start to work before someone else gets the chance to try to eat. 

"Keith!" Allura says, her voice sounds politely surprised, but Keith can see the anger in her eyes. If Shiro hadn't believed Keith in the first place, he wouldn't have seen any point in passing along Keith's worries to Allura, and Keith and Pidge had decided that she wouldn't believe him either. To her, he's just all of a sudden being an animal at the dinner table of some very important people. 

(To her, he might as well have been that all along.) 

It would take time to say something back to her, so Keith doesn't bother. By now, he's taken a bite out of every food option on his plate and is doubling back for another. Shiro tries to work some kind of damage control with Allura on Keith's behalf, but he's starting to look a little uncertain. Keith casts a glance up the table and is fairly certain that the leader is starting to look a little nervous too. 

(People are always uncontrollable variables, but Keith has always been an even further outlier. It's one of the only things he has going for him sometimes.) 

That’s when the fork tumbles out of Keith’s fingers.

There is a split second where no one speaks or moves, and Keith does a quick internal check to see if it’s clumsiness or panic that suddenly slackened his grip.

It quickly turns out to be neither, and the silence breaks. 

Keith shoves away from the table with a burst of panicked energy, and steps away only far enough to double over and stick his fingers down his throat with practiced ease (this is far from his first rodeo) even though he can already tell that it's too late. There's a trembling instability in his knees that confirms his suspicions that the drug would have to be fast-acting (he's praying it's a drug, at least. He suspects that the Galra would prefer to have the Paladins delivered alive, either because they would want answers from them or simply because a statement cannot be made out of a quiet poisoning on a solitary planet. He just hopes he's right about.) 

Keith has the wherewithal to step away from the mess of his own vomit before the dizziness sinks in and he has to fight to stay upright. He’s already reached a point where it’s difficult to keep his eyes open and pointed where he wants them to be, so in the still moment where no one is sure how to react and Keith knows he doesn’t have much time left, he forces his eyes to find Shiro’s and says, “I told you.”

Maybe it's a little cruel, but Keith doesn't have the presence of mind to care about that. His knees finally give out and he tumbles, uselessly throwing out a hand to try and catch himself on the table and hitting the floor anyway. 

The room's sudden break into pandemonium is the last thing Keith hears before the dizziness overtakes him.

* * *

He wakes up to the sound of tired arguing. 

"It's not asking too much to just  _listen_ to him!" 

"Look, obviously I was in the wrong this time, but that doesn't mean that we can just ignore the fact that Keith is not always capable of being completely objective about things." 

Recognizing Pidge and Shiro’s voices is the only thing that keeps Keith from panicking, because he can’t quite move and can tell that he’s in an enclosed space. After a moment, he realizes that it’s probably a healing pod. He wonders if it was that serious or just a precaution. 

“That doesn’t mean we can just _ignore_ whatever he has to say,” Pidge cries. Something in both of their tones tells Keith that this has been going on for a while. “Maybe we can’t always bail when Keith says he’s got a bad feeling, but that doesn’t mean you just pat him on the head and tell him to fuck off about it. I didn’t have to _do_ anything except entertain the thought for a second and decide to keep an eye out, and that’s _literally_ all it takes.”

“He looked,” Hunk says, falters, and continues, “he looked like no one had ever even done that much for him before.”

There’s a silence that Keith takes to mean that no one had said this before then. The pod, of course, takes the moment of quiet to dump Keith out into the middle of the shit-show he hasn’t even been able to open his eyes to see yet.

“Keith,” Shiro’s voice is full of some kind of emotion, and Keith has to fight to keep a grimace off of his face.

“Uh,” he stammers eloquently in response. “It wasn’t actual poison was it?”

Fuck. That was probably not the first thing they wanted to hear from him.

“No,” Pidge says, after a sound that might almost be a huff of laughter. “Just a sedative. The plan was to sell us off to the Galra in exchange for immunity, and some kind of financial assistance. You foiled their plan, by acting like an idiot.”

There’s a moment where Keith considers letting her have that comment, but his mouth acts quicker than he can stop it. “It was the only thing I could think of,” he says, only slightly too humorously to be waspish.

“You shouldn’t have had to think of anything in the first place,” Shiro says, and Keith’s muscles coil defensively before he can think about it. His eyes automatically search out the nearest exit before finding Shiro’s (he doesn’t really mean anything by it; it’s just instinct). “If you had told me about your suspicions when I didn’t know about your mental illness, I wouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss you. Pidge was right,” this is aimed more at her than it is a Keith, “I should have listened. I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

Keith is almost at a loss. This is not actually a situation he comes equipped to deal with; if Shiro had told him that it hadn’t mattered, or that he shouldn’t have been so impulsive, or literally anything else, Keith would have been able to give him an answer because he would have been used to it.

He doesn’t know how to deal with apologies.

“It’s… fine?” It winds up coming out as more of a question, which hadn’t quite been what Keith had been aiming for. He clears his throat and tries again, “I mean, I get it.”

Because he _does_. Keith is nothing if not painfully self-aware, he knows why people wouldn’t bother to believe him; even he vows not to believe _himself_ the next time it happens, every time things settle down and start making logical sense again.  

That could have been the end of it, but it isn’t. Instead, Shiro actually shakes his head and insists, “Maybe so, but that doesn’t change anything. I should have listened to you the same way I would have before. I told you that this wouldn’t interfere with you being a pilot, and it shouldn’t interfere with you being an insightful and _trusted_ member of this team either. It won’t happen again.”

Keith doesn’t even get the chance to fumble a response to that before Shiro has pulled him into an almost too tight hug.

Keith’s first inclination is always towards skepticism and disbelief, and he’s surprised to not feel either at Shiro’s declaration. Even though there’s no guarantee that he’s being serious or that he’ll manage to follow through in his declaration, Keith trusts that Shiro is being completely honest. He believes him.

“Okay,” he says, voice a little small, and wraps his own arms around Shiro in response.

Maybe he won’t be successful, but he’s trying, and that’s more than someone has done for Keith in a while.

Success or not, that has to count for something.

**Author's Note:**

> should specify that Shiro isn't being painted as a deliberately bad person here; even the best-intentioned people can make mistakes/decisions like this. 
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


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